OK, OK, I know I
promised the winner of our 2002 War Against Christmas
Competition by Twelfth Night. I`m so late that I can`t
even tender my fall-back excuse:
Orthodox Christians using the Julian Calendar
celebrate Christmas on January 7, as
Joseph Rapp pointed out to us:

The world largely ignores us and the media has not
launched the same war against us as has been brought
against non-Orthodox Christians. I guess that
multiculturalists and
diversitycrats ignore us or deem us as irrelevant
because we do not fit into or serve their ideological
views.

Still, being late means I can include this important
social document, which
Jim Russell
submitted as an early entry in our War Against Christmas
2003

…in Jonathan Kesselman`s
`Jewish exploitation` comedy, `The Hebrew Hammer`…the
Hammer (Adam Goldberg), the Orthodox Jewish hero, must
battle the evil son of Santa (Andy Dick) to save
Chanukah…[Kesselman says] `I asked myself, "What
as a Jew really pisses me off?" It hit me when I was
walking around a mall in December: I hate Christmastime.
There are always all these Christmas decorations and a
pathetic little menorah tucked away in a corner.`

AND THE WINNER IS…

Me? I thought about
naming myself because of my heroic struggle with
Amazon.com`s Associates Program, of which VDARE.COM is
an enthusiastic member. (Remember, if you begin buying
through any VDARE.COM link to Amazon, we get a
commission on anything you buy – at no cost to you!)

All I wanted was a
Christmas logo to display on VDARE.COM. All that were
available were "Happy Holiday" logos. I asked why no
Christmas logo was offered. (Just one! Just as an
option!) After a series of exchanges with what appeared
to be a computer, I got this:

Thanks for writing to the Associates Program.

We do not have an official statement as to why we do not
offer Christmas graphics in Associates Central.

As stated in our previous messages, you may find Holiday
graphics to choose from in the Logo & Graphics section
of Associates Central.

We are unable to provide any more information than we
have already given you, and we have passed your feedback
on to the appropriate department. Please be aware that
we will not respond to any more inquiries regarding this
matter.

As always, please feel free to contact us should you
have future questions or comments, and thanks for your
continued interest in the Associates Program.

Best regards,

Brenda B.
Amazon.com Associates Program

I have a lot of respect for this remarkable company`s
marketing. Which makes it even more surprising that it
offers no Christmas logo option. (Are there no churches
in the Amazon Associates Program? Although churches
cringe on Christmas too, as Kerri Jones has
noted earlier.)

VDARE.COM readers who
own Amazon
stock, or who are thinking of buying some, might
ask the company`s Investor Relations Department.

There`s
obviously growing opposition to the anti-Christmas
kulturkampf. But no American establishment type
seems to have voiced it, in contrast to Canada, where it
was even
denounced by a Sikh Member of Parliament, Gurmant
Grewal, and to Britain, where even the Muslim peer Lord
Ahmed described it as
"stupid." (However, Izzy Lyman of
Homeschooling Revolution did
report an Amherst MA Hispanic school board member
saying the suspension of high school children for
handing out candy canes was an "overreaction.")

Nevertheless, the
Establishment feels under pressure. One sign reported by
a reader: my friend the Bush
hagiographer David Frum, an adroit reader of trends,
preemptively
praised his hero in National Review Online
for having the courage to mention Christmas at the
lighting of the National Christmas Tree (while being
careful to note his participation in Ramadan and
Hanukkah ceremonies). Wow!

Unfortunately for this
line of argument, another reader reported, the Bush
Christmas card - well, wasn`t:

The official cards from the
president and first lady do not mention Christmas.
Little about its cover painting of a Franklin
Roosevelt-era Steinway piano in the White House`s Grand
Foyer, save red draperies and flowers, calls the holiday
to mind. One recipient even mistook it, especially given
the card`s early arrival, for a Thanksgiving greeting.

Even some of the
knee-jerk Republicans still reading
unFree Republic
thought this was pretty pathetic.

We have noted
before that National Review is the bellwether
(i.e. castrated sheep leading the herd) of the
Establishment Right on these matters. This was how a
reader saw its performance this year:

National Review Online - which is filled with
blurbs for "holiday gifts" and the like today has up
Michael Potemra`s glowing
review of Norman Podhoretz`s
foray into biblical criticism. Much of the review is
given over to Podheretz` view that Isaiah did not
predict the coming of Christ, a belief of great
antiquity in Christianity. In other words, National
Review is celebrating Christmas by endorsing
Podhoretz`s attack on Christianity. Charming.

Another reader refined
the point:

The malice of the NR review, which is in the
print edition, can be indicated by the fact that Poddy
spends only a couple of pages on messianic prophecy. He
briefly mentions that he does not accept Isaiah 9 and
the Suffering Servant passages as referring to Jesus. He
acknowledges that there is no consensus on what they do
refer to and that modern critical scholars do not
believe in messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. He
is very clear that he is not a scholar and that he
depends on critical scholarship for his views. It is not
learned and he does not assert that it is…

Not mentioned in NR is Poddy`s description of
First Isaiah as an "isolationist," who urged Israel to
avoid "entangling alliances," i.e. as a paleo-conservative…No
point in confusing NR`s readers.

Talking of entangling
alliances, one of our military readers sent us this
clip:

EAGLE BASE, TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — U.S. soldiers
stationed here are quick to point out that the large
pine tree decorated with lights and holiday ornaments
near the center of the base is not a Christmas tree.

"It`s a liberty tree," said Maj. Shawn R. Mell,
explaining that an important part of living on this NATO
base, which is headquarters to the American component of
the international peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, is
learning to appreciate the country`s mix of religions,
with Muslims the plurality.

"We don`t have a Christmas tree here, because we`re
honoring all of those faiths," he said. "You`ve got so
many different holidays happening around this time —
from Christmas to Ramadan to the Russian Orthodox New
Year to our New Year — so we`re honoring that."

Our runner-up must be
VDARE.COM friend and
contributor David Walsh. He was one of a number of
public-spirited readers who emailed Boeing to ask why it
insisted on replacing the word "Christmas" with "Winter
Break" in its contract with its machinists, as we
noted in opening our 2002 contest. David got this
back:

Thank you for your recent communication on Boeing`s use
of the term "winter break." We respect your desire to
honor your faith and your country, and we consider your
concerns important as we do those of every employee in
the worldwide Boeing organization.

The winter break is a time Boeing sets aside for renewal
at the end of the year and to honor the myriad
collection of holidays and holy days celebrated by our
diverse employee workforce around the world. We respect
your freedom to celebrate this time in a manner of your
own personal choosing, just as we respect that freedom
for all Boeing employees.

Sincerely,

-
Boeing Webmaster

The beauty, or horror,
of this reply is that it makes clear the integral
connection between the
War Against Christmas and the
Abolishing America – two favorite VDARE.COM themes.
Precisely because this would-be post-American
corporation wishes to be thought of as multinational - a
sophisticated citizen of the world - it feels the need
to attack the central religious tradition of the nation
that gave it birth.

The winner of our 2002 War Against Christmas
Competition:
Jerry Cline, who wrote tersely:

Handel`s "Messiah" was cancelled by Christophobic
fascists in Columbus, OH. To hell with these
goose-steppers. They should have performed it
anyway!!!

Merry Christmas,

Jerry Cline

This was the story that
had aroused his righteous wrath:

The angelic voices turned bitter and dejected after last
night`s Winter Concert at
Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School. "I just feel
raped of four years of dedication to this group,`` said
Zach Glenn, a senior member of the Fort Hayes
Metropolitan Singers, an elite choral group of about 20
students.

The beauty of this
story is that it makes clear the integral connection
between the War Against Christmas and the murderous
onslaught on Western art and culture. This is indeed, as
Solzhenitisyn said in his Nobel Prize acceptance
speech that I cited in launching this year`s
competition, "the closing down of the heart of the
nation."

To endorse Jerry Cline`s
words, to hell with them all.

To calm down, I
recommend the great aria with which Handel opened the
third and last part of his masterpiece: